Sierra de Córdoba
Encyclopedia
Mountain range
A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...
in central Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, located between the Pampas to the east and south, the Chaco
Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semi-arid lowland region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, where it is connected with the Pantanal region...
to the north and the foothills of the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
to the west. Almost the entire range, except for the southwestern margin in San Luis Province
San Luis Province
San Luis is a province of Argentina located near the geographical center of the country . Neighboring provinces are, from the north clockwise, La Rioja, Córdoba, La Pampa, Mendoza and San Juan.-History:...
, is located in Córdoba Province.
Origin and topography
Much older than the Andes, having been formed in the PaleozoicPaleozoic
The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...
and extensively eroded, the Sierra de Córdoba still manages to reach a height of 2880 metres at Mount Champaquí
Mount Champaquí
The Champaquí, is a mountain located in the western province of Argentina, Córdoba. It is the highest peak in the province, with a height of 2790 m....
, east of Villa Dolores
Villa Dolores
Villa Dolores is a small city in the province of Cordoba, Argentina located in the southwestern side of the province with a population is approximately 40,000 inhabitants....
. The northern part, known as the Sierra de Norte, is considerably lower and less rugged. The mountains, when first built, formed the boundary between Gondwana
Gondwana
In paleogeography, Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland, was the southernmost of two supercontinents that later became parts of the Pangaea supercontinent. It existed from approximately 510 to 180 million years ago . Gondwana is believed to have sutured between ca. 570 and 510 Mya,...
and the then-expanding Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, and consist chiefly of metamorphic rocks such as quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
, which were formed when large quantities of marine sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
were subject to enormous heat and pressure. In the Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
, there was extremely intense volcanism
Volcanism
Volcanism is the phenomenon connected with volcanoes and volcanic activity. It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of a planet to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface....
over the region, almost all of which is now completely eroded, forming the many salt lakes on the western side of the range, which is an elevated plateau leading to the foothills of the Andes.
The range has a largely rounded contour, and there are few major valleys. Salt lakes (salinas
Salinas
-People:*Anita Reeves Salinas, Chilean television, film and theatre actress*Camilo Salinas, Chilean musician*Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a Mexican president*Francisco de Salinas, a 16th century Spanish music theorist*Francisco Vidal Salinas, Chilean politician...
), the largest of which is Salinas Grandes
Salinas Grandes
The Salinas Grandes is a salt desert in the Córdoba and Santiago del Estero provinces of the Sierras de Córdoba in Argentina. It covers an area of 3,200 mi² ....
receive most runoff
Surface runoff
Surface runoff is the water flow that occurs when soil is infiltrated to full capacity and excess water from rain, meltwater, or other sources flows over the land. This is a major component of the water cycle. Runoff that occurs on surfaces before reaching a channel is also called a nonpoint source...
from the mountains, except for the eastern part which drains into swamps in the Pampas. Though regarded as part of the Paraná River
Paraná River
The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...
basin, under present climatic conditions almost no water reaches the river even in wet years.
Climate
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...
Cwa), with hot, wet summers with frequent thunderstorms and mild, dry winters. Average annual rainfall at Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
is about 715 mm (28 inches) but is highly variable. On the eastern side of the Sierra, rainfall can be as high as 1200 mm (47 inches) per year, but it quickly drops off on the western side to less than 400 millimetres (16 inches). Maximum temperatures at low elevations are high, rainging from 33 °C (92 °F) in summer to 16 °C (60 °F) in winter, but at an altitude of 2000 metres, temperatures are about 14 °C (25 °F) cooler and exposure is very high. However, because the winters are so dry, very little snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
falls even at the highest altitudes and there is no evidence of glacial or periglacial
Periglacial
Periglacial is an adjective originally referring to places in the edges of glacial areas, but it has later been widely used in geomorphology to describe any place where geomorphic processes related to freezing of water occur...
features from the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
.
The cooler climate in the mountains has encouraged development of many summer resorts for the wealthy of Córdoba, notably Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia is a city located in the north-centre of the . Its name means "High Grace". It is built upon the Sierras Chicas, in a region that the Comechingón Indians used to call Paravachasca. It has about 43,000 inhabitants .- History :...
and Jesus Maria
Jesús María
-Mexico:*The municipality of Jesús María, Aguascalientes*The municipality of Jesús María, Nayarit*The municipality of Jesús María, Jalisco*Villa Jesús María, in Baja California*Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Jesús María del Nayar...
.
Vegetation
The flora of the Sierra de Córdoba is related to that of the Chaco region (see Gran Chaco for details) and consists at low altitudes of forestForest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
dominated by Lithrea ternifolia and Fagara coco
Fagara coco
Zanthoxylum coco is an evergreen tree of the Rutaceae family, natural of Argentina and Bolivia where it grows in the wild, mostly hilly, spinniferous forests...
, with Schinopsis haenkeana
Schinopsis haenkeana
Schinopsis haenkeana is a species of plant in the Anacardiaceae family. It is found in Argentina and Bolivia. Its vernacular names include Quebracho blanco, horco quebracho.-Source:...
dominant on the dry western slopes. High exposure causes the limits of tree growth to be quite low at about 2000 metres, above which an extensive alpine grassland
Grassland
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...
dominated by various species of Stipa
Stipa
This article is about a type of grass.For Speech Transmission Index for Public Address Systems, see Speech transmission index.For the Italian aircraft designer, see Luigi Stipa...
predominates. Many of the species in this alpine zone are very rare, but the level of conservation is not high, with most of the mountain range unprotected. More than 100 bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
species are common in the mountains, but ranching has reduced most native mammal populations severely.
It is believed that the vegetation of the Sierra de Córdoba has varied greatly over the Quaternary
Quaternary
The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...
, with some periods in the Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
between 8000 and 500 years before today when forests extended to the now-dry western side of the mountain range and the adjacent Sierra de San Luis. At other times, such as glacial periods and the earliest part of the Holocene, the whole mountain range was completely treeless due to extremely low rainfall. This may explain why few endemics are found outside the zone above the timberline — where species that have inhabited the area for thousands of years take a kind of refuge from a warmer, wetter climate.
People
Most of the population of the region lives in Córdoba cityCórdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
, which contains about half the provincial population — with most of the rest in the Pampas region well east of the range. The lack of arable land means that few people live in the mountains themselves, where the major industries are grazing
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
and tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
.
Tourism
The Sierras de Córdoba is one of the most important holiday centers of Argentina. Three million tourists visit the Sierras annually. The most important tourist destinations are Villa Carlos PazVilla Carlos Paz
Villa Carlos Paz is a city in the center-north of the province of Córdoba, Argentina, in the south of the Punilla Valley, lying on the western slope of the Sierras Chicas. It has a population of about 56,000 as per the...
, Cosquín
Cosquín, Córdoba
Cosquín is a small town in the , located about 52 km from the city of Córdoba, and 783 km from Buenos Aires. It has about 19,000 inhabitants as of the...
, La Falda
La Falda
La Falda is a town in the , located 79 km from Córdoba and 800 km from Buenos Aires. It has about 15,000 inhabitants as of the .La Falda lies at the foot of two small mountains , and it is part of an important touristic circuit of the province...
, Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia is a city located in the north-centre of the . Its name means "High Grace". It is built upon the Sierras Chicas, in a region that the Comechingón Indians used to call Paravachasca. It has about 43,000 inhabitants .- History :...
, and Villa General Belgrano
Villa General Belgrano
Villa General Belgrano, a small mountain village of 6,260 inhabitants is named after the creator of the Argentine flag Manuel Belgrano and located in a lush green valley of Calamuchita in the hills in the Province of Córdoba in central Argentina.-History:...
amongst others.